tinkle
US/ˈtɪŋkəl/
tinkle verb: to make light metallic sounds, rather like a very small bell.
Verb
tinkle (third-person singular simple present tinkles, present participle tinkling, simple past and past participle tinkled)
- To make light metallic sounds, rather like a very small bell.
- The glasses tinkled together as they were placed on the table.
- The sprightly horse / Moves to the music of his tinkling bells.1753, Robert Dodsley, Agriculture
- To cause to tinkle.
- To indicate, signal, etc. by tinkling.
- The butler tinkled dinner.
- To hear, or resound with, a small, sharp sound.
- And his ears tinkled, and the colour fled.1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- To urinate.
- Synonyms:
- urinate
Noun
tinkle (countable and uncountable, plural tinkles)
- A light metallic sound, resembling the tinkling of bells or wind chimes.
- The Man's Wife heard the tinkle-tinkle of little stones and loose earth falling off the roadway, and the sliding roar of the man and horse going down.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “At the Pit's Mouth”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 56
- She laughed, her voice a tinkle in the silence of the circular chamber.1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 97
- A telephone call.
- Give me a tinkle when you arrive.
- An act of urination.
- Urine.
Proper noun capitalized: Tinkle
Tinkle (plural Tinkles)
- A surname.
tinkle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
tinkle in Tamil
- மணியொலி ஒத்த மார்பொலி
tinkle in Urdu
- جھنکارنا, ٹنٹنانا
tinkle in Malayalam
- കിലുങ്ങുക, മൂത്രമൊഴിക്കുക, പെടുക്കുക
tinkle in Kannada
- ಕಿಣಿಕಿಣಿ ಸಪ್ಪಳ ಮಾಡು, ಕಿಣಿಕಿಣಿಸು, ಕಿಣಿಗುಟ್ಟು, ಕಿಣಿಕಿಣಿ ಎನ್ನು
Examples of tinkle in a sentence
- The wind chimes tinkled musically in the breeze.
- Her dainty feet were covered with toerings and tinkling anklets while glass bangles covered her arms.
- Tinkle, your son’s rambunctious behavior is quite common in children with unusually high intelligence levels.
Synonyms of tinkle
Forms of tinkle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | tinkles |
| present participle | tinkling |
| past participle | tinkled |
| past | tinkled |
| Noun | |
| plural | tinkles |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Tinkles |
Origin of tinkle
From Middle English tinclen, equivalent to tink + -le (frequentative suffix). Cognate with West Frisian tinkelje (“to tinkle”), Dutch tinkelen (“to tinkle”), German Low German tinkeln (“to flicker, glitter, sparkle”).
Words formed from tinkle
Phrases with tinkle
Words that rhyme with tinkle
Questions about tinkle
- What does tinkle mean?
- Tinkle means to make light metallic sounds, rather like a very small bell.
- What is tinkle in Tamil?
- Tinkle in Tamil is மணியொலி ஒத்த மார்பொலி. See Tinkle meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is tinkle?
- Tinkle can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tinkle?
- Tinkle is pronounced /ˈtɪŋkəl/ (US).
- What is the past tense of tinkle?
- The past tense of tinkle is tinkled.
Words near tinkle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tinkle (page history and authors); Tinkle (page history and authors); tinkle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tinkle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tinkle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tinkle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tinkle.wav.
Cite this entry: “tinkle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tinkle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.